Hang on install of 5.3 on old Presario

[Scott I. Remick]

I'm trying to breathe some life into some old hardware by giving it a task
of a server. I've burnt the full 5.3 ISO to CD. I can get it to read the CD
fine and start to boot. I get as far as the "Welcome to FreeBSD" menu (with
the ASCII daemon). No matter what option I choose, the bar then spins for a
moment and then the computer hangs.

I've tried upgrading the BIOS to the latest offered from Compaq's website
(although it's dated 1998). I've turned off PnP, and all unneeded ports
(including serial, parallel, USB). I've tried both the "DOS" and "Other"
setting for the HDD geometry. I've turned off all power-saving. Nothing
seems to work. I've also tried using the 3 floppies... same problem.

This is a Compaq Presario 4505 which won't be GUI. I'm trying to get my dad
into FreeBSD, Apache, PHP, and so on. This was a machine he came up with for
me to set up for him so he can screw around. It should work, since I've used
a 486 as a web server before.

Any ideas? Thanks!